The California Association for Health and Welfare records consist of executive committee minutes, planning materials and reports
from regional and statewide conferences, newsletters, and miscellaneous Association publications. The majority of the material
documents the planning of the Conference's annual organizational meetings held across the state, including the meeting held
to discuss the fate of the organization in 1969. There are also materials produced by the California Conference of Social
Work and the California Conference on Social Welfare.

Background

California Association for Health and Welfare was the name adopted in 1958 by the former California Conference of Social Work,
which had been an important and highly influential assembly of professional social workers and lay members dedicated to public
service. The group began in 1901, as the California Conference of Charities and Corrections, with the initial goal of promoting
legislation to establish a state department supervising the state's welfare activities. After the California State Department
of Charities and Corrections (later the Department of Social Welfare) was finally set up in 1903, the Conference played major
roles in the development of the state's juvenile courts, in the reform of county hospitals, in pioneering state aid for needy
children and the aged, and in the registration and certification of social workers. It also developed an effective legislative
advocacy arm, first flexed during assaults on state social services launched by the legislature during the 1930s. At its height
in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Conference had a membership of over 3,000 and would often host 1,000 or more attendees
at its annual conferences. The bulk of the collection reflects the condition of the Association from 1965 to 1969, when membership
had sunk to around 600 and was in an apparently irreversible decline leading to dissolution of the group in February 1969.

Extent

0.83 Linear feet
2 boxes

Restrictions

The use of archival materials for on-site research does not constitute permission from the California Social Welfare Archives
to publish them. Copyright has not been assigned to the California Social Welfare Archives, and the researcher is instructed
to obtain permission from the copyright holder to quote from or publish manuscripts in the CSWA's collections.